What happened to the HECU soldiers that captured Gordon Freeman at the end of Apprehension?

[Saryn]

We all know that in the ending for the chapter Apprehension in HL1 and Black Mesa that Freeman gets ambushed by a pair of HECU marines and is dragged off to a trash compactor. They're never seen again after the cutscene of them discussing what they're gonna do with Freeman. It would've been cool if the two of them were discussing on how they ended Freeman but he drops in on them and shocks the two marines, crying out that he should be dead.

I may answer my own question here but ever since the last update for Black Mesa. The devs added a little change to the trash compactor control room. Upon entering there are a few dead headcrabs, a marine that has been gibbed by an explosion and another marine that has been turned into a zombie and is groaning in the corner of the next room that has been blocked off by a shelf. Maybe that's the two marines who ambushed Freeman and attempted to kill him but were ambushed by headcrabs? It does seem like them since there are only two marines in the control room.

[Rambler]

good thoughts, I too used to wonder about them guys :o)
and this WOULD seem to give closure to that particular loose thread as it were
any DEVS around, care to comment ?

[Saryn]

Originally posted by Rambler:

good thoughts, I too used to wonder about them guys :o)
and this WOULD seem to give closure to that particular loose thread as it were
any DEVS around, care to comment ?

Well the devs probably wrapped up what happened to them two marines at the start of Residue Processing. As I said in the discussion, there is two corpses of HECU marines in the trash compactor control room. It seems they got ambushed by headcrabs after starting the compactor. One was killed either by his buddy with a grenade launcher or he committed suicide by blowing himself up with a grenade rather than turning into a zombie. His buddy got turned into a zombie and is sitting in a corner of a room next to the control room, he can be seen and heard groaning by looking through the door.

[Doc Tear Popper]

Wow, of all the meaningless changes the BM devs add they had the two marines die such humiliating deaths...

In Decay, Gordon is saved by Gina and Collette from the two marines. One of them was about to shoot Gordon in the back of the head before throwing him in the trash compactor.

[Cat]

Originally posted by Duc P:

Wow, of all the meaningless changes the BM devs add they had the two marines die such humiliating deaths...

In Decay, Gordon is saved by Gina and Collette from the two marines. One of them was about to shoot Gordon in the back of the head before throwing him in the trash compactor.

The part where Gordon was saved by Gina and Collette was cut, but I agree it's meaningless and humiliating to have the soldiers getting killed by a bunch of crummy headcrabs. I was expecting them to be more oppressive in BM until the alien grunts show up.

[CyDoN]

@Frikkie when you escape the crashing machine you climb the stairs, there 2 dead marines, one is mutilated and eaten by headcrabs and one in the blocked room who is zombiefied. So these guys died.

[Dragunov]

More ingame movies would be great

[Doc Tear Popper]

Originally posted by Cat:

Originally posted by Duc P:

Wow, of all the meaningless changes the BM devs add they had the two marines die such humiliating deaths...

In Decay, Gordon is saved by Gina and Collette from the two marines. One of them was about to shoot Gordon in the back of the head before throwing him in the trash compactor.

The part where Gordon was saved by Gina and Collette was cut, but I agree it's meaningless and humiliating to have the soldiers getting killed by a bunch of crummy headcrabs. I was expecting them to be more oppressive in BM until the alien grunts show up.

Yeah, especially since these are the marines to have successfully apprehended THE Gordon Freeman. These are the most competent marines in the original HL, and to have them killed by headcrabs is just an insult to the original game.

[Gantolandon]

Originally posted by Duc P:

Originally posted by Cat:

The part where Gordon was saved by Gina and Collette was cut, but I agree it's meaningless and humiliating to have the soldiers getting killed by a bunch of crummy headcrabs. I was expecting them to be more oppressive in BM until the alien grunts show up.

Yeah, especially since these are the marines to have successfully apprehended THE Gordon Freeman. These are the most competent marines in the original HL, and to have them killed by headcrabs is just an insult to the original game.

These marines are also the same guys, who:

• Decided to kill Freeman, instead of obeying their orders and getting him topside, a sure way to get acclaim of the brass.
  
• Decided that someone else finding Gordon Freeman's dead body would be a tragedy, because clearly no one else could have killed him but them.
  
• Instead of executing Freeman there and hiding the corpse, they proceeded to drag him alive through the monster-infested bowels of Black Mesa to find that one trash compactor that can get rid of the body completely.
  
• Took away Gordon's weapons, but left the HEV suit, which was the sole reason why an unassuming scientist had become the god of war.
  
• Dumped their unconscious, but very much alive victim into the trash compactor where a bunch of crates were conveniently stacked to allow exit to anyone, who's not a paraplegic.

Somehow I'm not surprised that this pair of geniuses didn't account for headcrabs.

[Doctor Go-Go]

Does that scene imply the two soldiers didn't want to be bothered with transporting him? Then why not just shoot him before throwing him in the compactor? None of it makes sense. No one would be looking for evidence to prove anything.

Also they already reported in that they captured him, so ... what would the excuse be?

And if they didn't want to be bothered with the transport why did they bother attempting to capture him to begin with? Doesn't make much sense.

We just went through the trouble of capturing him, we reported in over the radio that we have him, so not we're going to dump his body in the compactor and no one is going to be wondering what happened? It does make any sense.

I mean it's over-elaborate and senseless. If they were going to ditch him they could just kill him then toss him in the compactor. Right after report in he has escaped. But even then command would want to know how he got free and why they didn't go after him.

Stupid.

[Re:Start-E.D.420]

how much of HL would change if those two geniuses did what they were ordered to do

[Doc Tear Popper]

Originally posted by Doctor Go-Go:

Does that scene imply the two soldiers didn't want to be bothered with transporting him? Then why not just shoot him before throwing him in the compactor? None of it makes sense. No one would be looking for evidence to prove anything.

Also they already reported in that they captured him, so ... what would the excuse be?

And if they didn't want to be bothered with the transport why did they bother attempting to capture him to begin with? Doesn't make much sense.

We just went through the trouble of capturing him, we reported in over the radio that we have him, so not we're going to dump his body in the compactor and no one is going to be wondering what happened? It does make any sense.

I mean it's over-elaborate and senseless. If they were going to ditch him they could just kill him then toss him in the compactor. Right after report in he has escaped. But even then command would want to know how he got free and why they didn't go after him.

Stupid.

As I mentioned before, Gordon was saved by Gina and Colette in Decay but CC doesn't want to acknowledge the HL1 expansions in any way for some reason so instead they cut that out and had the two marines killed by a couple of headcrabs...

[Timerlane]

They wanted revenge for Gordon killing their fellow marines. They were under orders to capture him if they could, but those two, at least, didn't care, and probably figured the rest of the marines would prefer him dead, as well. They were thinking 'no body, no evidence that we killed him', and may have assumed their fellow marines, approving of what they had done, would probably cover for them if questions from above did arise.

Remember that HL1 was pre-9/11, and relatively few would have objected to depicting U.S. military personnel as nothing but dumb, short-sighted 'jocks'.

[Alcoholic]

My question is what happened to HECU soldiers after the events of hl1? Dont tell me they are all dead except Adrian?

[Saryn]

Originally posted by Zorga:

My question is what happened to HECU soldiers after the events of hl1? Dont tell me they are all dead except Adrian?

They likely disbanded after the Combine defeated humanity after the 7 Hour War. Probably a small group of HECU units are part of the resistance too.

[shoes]

Originally posted by Frikkie:

Originally posted by Zorga:

My question is what happened to HECU soldiers after the events of hl1? Dont tell me they are all dead except Adrian?

They likely disbanded after the Combine defeated humanity after the 7 Hour War. Probably a small group of HECU units are part of the resistance too.

A good amount of them are also probably Combine soldiers. (Some are on a boat hunting down the Freeman.)